JDR13 said:
How exactly does armor % work?
Good question, I've been wondering it myself. Apparently, you'll get a damage reduction (not called that in TDE, but can't remember what it was) points for completing the armor set. This reduces all incoming damage by its value. Then you have the "resistance" percentages, which reduce incoming damage of their type (after DR reduction) by their percentage. E.g. having a DR of 1 and 40% resistance vs piercing against a hit doing 11 pts piercing would result in 11-1= 10, 10 -40%= 6 pts of damage. That's my understanding of it, anyway.
As to the debuffs and such, I don't think the game cheats (I truly hope not), I think they're just bugged and not working properly as of now.
Alrik Fassbauer said:
Have you played TDE as pen & paper ?
No, unfortunately I haven't. I've never even seen a TDE rulebook anywhere, let alone heard anyone playing it, but then again I'm not German and my understanding is that P&P TDE is quite rare outside Germany. I'd like to try it, sure, as I'm interested in the game world (Aventuria), but so far all I've experienced of TDE is the computer RPG side of it. So I'm basing my feelings of the ruleset on only reading about them, not actually playing them face to face. However, even without actual play I can tell I'd really dislike rolling d20 three times just to do a talent check.
Alrik Fassbauer said:
Yes, my personal criticism towards the game is as well, that it is very, very "math-heavy". But these 3 rolls have been there from day 1. They belong to TDE like nothing else.
Oh, I didn't know that. My memories of the Dark Eye Trilogy (i.e. Nordland Saga), which to my understanding used the 3rd edition TDE rules, were that there was only a single roll (under the hood) against an attribute with the skill/talent modifying the roll, but I'm obviously wrong then. So the three rolls are a "legacy rule" then and considered part of what makes TDE what it is. Hard to argue against that. But even so, it's curious that the system has been kept as is all these years as it is cumbersome. Many other rule sets which have their origins in the 80's, when most systems were quite rule and math-heavy, have evolved over the years and e.g. excessive dice-rolling or number-crunching have been lessened to a great deal.
Note that I'm not against
some math in P&P RPGs. I'm not anti-math in any way, but if it is a constant requirement in normal gameplay, then I think it's going a bit too far. MOst of the math should be front-loaded to character creation and only a minimal amount of it required during play. IMHO, at least.
Alrik Fassbauer said:
However, those weak in maths actually can have a hard time with the current rules.
I don't think it's only those weak in math, but there are also people who can do math just fine but don't consider it a fun and relaxing way to spend their time - which RPGs should be, fun & relaxing time with your friends (for the most part at least).
Alrik Fassbauer said:
The nad thing is, imho, that most hardcore TDE players want it to be so. They are vocally (especially in the official forum) against any "dumbening" of the rules set. Some of them even argue that this complexity is a sign of quality.
THat's just elitism, IMO, and has nothing to do with good game design. Complexity doesn't equal Good Design. I'm not against complexity as such, mind you, but I am against needless complexity. Thus I find it hard to understand the hard core fans, if they seriously think the three dice roll talent check with talent point arithmetics is a good system out of anything but nostalgia. If the rules would keep all the three attributes relevant to the talent check and also have skill/talent score matter in a major way, but have it all be resolved with a single dice roll (with modifiers), how would that be "dumbing down" the system? You'd still have
all the elements of the three dice roll system matter in the check, the only thing changing would be removing excessive dice rolling and point tallying.
Alrik Fassbauer said:
There are several kinds of players out there; some prefer to play the story and leave the rules rather behind, or at least the complex parts of it. Others, the "simulationists" and the "min-maxers" as well, both prefer to have as complex rules as possible, because it gives them space to tinker with the numbers. Number-crunching, in a way. And this kind of player seemingly loves it.
Well, if we go by the old GNS theory/classification, I'm firmly in the simulationist camp myself, so I don't have anything against them.
However, being a simulationist doesn't mean you like to min-max or numbercrunch (I'd argue that's more of a gamist feature, but hey), it's more of a rules simulating the reality of the game world kind of thing. Whilst being a numbercruncher is alien to me, I still don't see the need for the rules to totally cater to that in it's most basic and oft needed rule (outside of combat). It's okay during character creation, as I said above, but if the very basis of the rule system hinges on numbercrunching, something is seriously off, IMO.
As a frame of reference, my favorite RPG rule system is GURPS 4th edition and it's somewhat math intensive (especially during character creation) and one could argue a very simulationist system. So now you know where I'm coming from, and that I'm not adverse to math being included in RPGs at all, nor to any apparent complexity of loads of situational (and optional) rules.
(As a good alternative to GURPS, RuneQuest/BRP (and it's many derivates) is a very good system too.)
Sorry, I need to go. (Oh, I think we should move this to another thread, this is getting seriously off-topic for this thread, I fear. I'd like to talk about this more, but maybe on another thread.)
P.S. There are a lot of cool things in the TDE 4 rules and I much rather play it than D&D (of any incarnation), so do note that I'm not trying to bad mouth TDE here.